APPENDIX. 147 



the allotment to other sections of onr country, so far as relates to the general and equable distri- 

 bution of the bounties, of a good Providence. 



"The fishing voyages, it is admitted, are not always conducted without auxiliaries from abroad. 

 For many years there h9,s been a disposition on the part of persons from the interior to place 

 themselves on board these vessels, to participate in the toils and advantages of these excursions. 

 But, after all, the home hands are the majority. Moreover, those from abroad who seek a place on 

 board our fishing vessels are in many instances agriculturists, mechanics, sometimes tradesmen, 

 and clergymen, whose health has required that they try the salubrious air and salutary exercise of 

 the voyage for the restoration of wholesome and vigorous action of the system — an experiment 

 that seldom fails. 



" The sweeping remark of Tallejrand, that 'all the qualities, all the virtues, which are attached 

 to agriculture, are wanting in the man who lives by fishing,' has been readily seized by many 

 minds of superficial observation, as if 'A gem oraculous on Aaron's breast, or tongue of seers of 

 old infallible'; but let it be borne in mind that those engaged in fisheries from the Cape are many 

 of them agriculturists. This community is very far from being made up of mere fishermen. 

 Unlike the ancient Tyrus, when in fulfillment of its ruin foretold it became 'the destroyed in the 

 midst of the sea, like the top of a rock, a place for the fishers to dry their nets on,' the Cape 

 embraces an extent of territory without an overcrowded population, sufficiently productive yet, if 

 not to save from famine the two old colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts, to remunerate the 

 homely toils of a few practical husbandmen. Indeed, very few persons in the county are exclusively 

 fishermen ; nor are the circumstances under which the fisheries are prosecuted such as to stigma- 

 tize any class. Admit that under certain circumstances the exclusive vocation of fishing is not most 

 favorable to mental development, the remark would not be applicable at all to the larger class 

 engaged upon the seas and in other employments, nor to the many occupied in various pursuits. 

 Besides, the constant emigration induced by that characteristic enterprise which leads so many to 

 seek wider fields of action, and which has been populating every part of our country ever since 

 the first settlement of the Cape, leaves ample room, so that none are debarred for want of space 

 of the opportunity of associating with other chosen pursuits that of agriculture, horticulture, or 

 kindred avocations. We readily concede, however, that there is nothing necessarily ennobling in 

 ^ere fishing ; indeed, we are constrained to acknowledge that there is always disceinable a marked 

 difference just in proportion to the degree in which certain fisheries engross the time of individuals 

 to the exclusion of a larger acquaintance with the world and the neglect of books. Yet, this differ- 

 ence is not more apparent than in the influence of continual application to other callings everywhere. 

 Lumbering, rafting, boating on canals, &c., are attended with similar results. When the Cape 

 shall have become a community of fishermen alone, we shall have better opportunity of testing the 

 axiom of Talleyrand. The Cape Cod man loves his native home. Wherever he may be, whether 

 in foreign climes, or buffeting the winds and plowing the waves of the billowy deep ; whether 

 a merchant prince in some one of our large cities, or located on the fertile lands of some new terri- 

 tory ; whether north, or south, or east, or near the declining sun, his thoughts ever turn to his place 

 of nativity with fond delight and peculiar yearning ; and he is proud to hail from this garden-spot 

 of creation — for such, to him, in an important sense, it appears, whatever impressions others may 

 have conceived of its sterility and stereotyped dullness. 



" Of this parvenu aristocracy of some parts of our country at the present day, the Cape makes 

 no boast. It is plebeian, though it has wealth, and that wealth liberally distributed. What is else- 

 where often mere show and empty ostentation, is here, generally, substantial reality. A man's brains 

 are not regarded as lodged in his purse; nor his character and claims as depending on the super- 



